ALUMINUM AND ENERGY—energy and aluminum—the two have been intimately linked since the industry started in 1886. That was when both Charles Martin Hall, in the United States, and Paul Heroult, in France, working independently, almost simultaneously discovered an economical process to produce aluminum from a fused salt using electrolysis. From this relatively recent discovery, the use of aluminum has grown rapidly and overtaken other older metals, such as copper, tin, and lead. It is now the second most widely used metal after steel